Mr. George Owarieta, Chairman, Institute of Chartered Mediators and Conciliators (ICMC), Warri branch, has called on Federal Government to address the issues of insecurity, other social vices and provide infrastructure to encourage economic growth, performance and foreign investment.
Owarieta made the call, while speaking with newsmen on the sidelines of the institute’s refresher training programme on Wednesday in Warri.
ICMC is a professional body in Nigeria that regulates and set standards for the practice of mediations and conciliations.
It also encourages organisations and institutions to adopt mediation and conciliation as the primary mechanism for resolving disputes.
According to him, the Federal Government has a big role to play in providing security and infrastructure to encourage economic growth, performance and foreign investment.
“Government is in prime position to eradicate poverty in the society by way of providing quality social services like health, education, water among others,” he said.
While decrying the level of poverty in the country, urged the Federal Government to take drastic measures to ameliorate the sufferings of the people.
“Nigeria is referred to as the Giant of Africa, but her social indicators cannot be compared with those of South Africa, Zambia and others.
“Seventy per cent of Nigerians live on less than one U.S dollar per day with high mortality rate.
“To address these plethora of challenges, Federal Government needs to create an enabling business environment, which will address unemployment and by implications, grow the economy.
“Nigeria has been branded as a country where access to power generation is restricted to private ownership of the generating plants,” he said.
Owarieta said that the private sector was the major driver of the economy of the developed world.
He said that electricity was a critical component in the private sector, urging the Federal Government to provide stable and efficient power supply in the country.
The industrialist said that government has no business in doing business, but should rather focus on providing social services to the people.
According to him, stable and efficient electricity supply is the “driving force” of the private sector all over the world. (NAN)
